Brooklyn's Chinatown

Subject: I like Diamon on 8th

I like Diamond on 8th for Dim Sum. It is the first restaurant to your left as you are walking down 8th ave from the N train stop. The address is 6022 Eigth ave in Sunset Park. Phone number is 718 492-6888. The dim sum there is great but it is packed on the weekends. Hope this helps. By the way are you Japanese?

Subject: Chinatown

Nishi - sorry, I couldn't help it.

I only went to BKLYN's Chinatown once...with an ex-bf. He drank one of those tapioca drinks on the street and told me we needed to go home NOW (can you say assplotion?). That's TMI, I'm sure, but the end result (ha!) is that we didn't make it to dinner!

Subject: Ocean Palace

I like Ocean Palace on 8th avenue and 55th Street. It is a large restaurant and it can easily accomodate a party of eight. I have enjoyed having dinner there with a group of friends on New Years Eve. several times. The food is very good, prices are reasonable. etc.

Parking is often difficult, you need to drive around the block quite a
few times to find space.

Subject: Re: Ocean Palace

Diane wrote: I like Ocean Palace on 8th avenue and 55th Street. It is a large restaurant and it can easily accomodate a party of eight. I have enjoyed having dinner there with a group of friends on New Years Eve. several times. The food is very good, prices are reasonable. etc.

Parking is often difficult, you need to drive around the block quite a
few times to find space.

Ocean Palace is no more. A sinkhole has taken its place which is ashame because it was the best Chinese place in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

Subject: Re: Ocean Palace

Idlewild wrote: Ocean Palace is no more. A sinkhole has taken its place which is ashame because it was the best Chinese place in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

I tried Ocean Palace several times when it was still open and I've got to say, I like World Tong (on 18th ave) even more.

armchair_warrior wrote: [quote=Carnivore]There's actually at least 2 Chinatowns in Brooklyn- one in Sunset Park, and one out by Avenue U in Bensonhurst.

you could also add maybe some streets of 86 st or 18 ave into the mix too . btw there is a china town in queens too in flushing . you should get out of the hood and see.

i was introduced to Dim Sum as a teenager in Main street flushing
i think it was called "Chinese Palace" or something
it was on the corner of the street, huge parking lot filled with cars

i lived in flushing. near Main street for a few years
raised green + red bell peppers in the front yard
and could see 2nd base of Shea stadium from the attic

but the mets sucked :oops:

main street is too too smelly

linusvanpelt wrote: Sad to hear Ocean Palace is gone. I also liked Jade Plaza[?], which was right nearby -- suggest that if it's still there. It's been a few years for me.

On a related note, I used to love the banh mi at a place on 8th ave called An Dong. But last time I was in the area, I couldn't find it -- either it's closed or moved or I was just lost. Any ideas? Any other banh mi suggestions?

Jade Palace is gone, but there's a new place in the same location. It's not traditional at all- they actually have a dim sum buffet instead of carts, but I have friends who have tried and liked it.

As far as Banh Mi, here's some suggestions from The Chowhound's Guide to the New York Tristate Area by Jim Leff:

An Dong
5424 8th Ave
Sunset Park
718-972-2269

Ba Le Deli
145 Canal St
Chinatown
212-343-2657

Ba Xuyen
6011 7th Ave
Sunset Park
718-765-0037

Ba Xuyen
4222 8th Ave
Sunset Park
718-633-6601

Banh M Sau Voi Cafe
101 Lafayette St
Tribeca
212-226-8184

Banh Mi Hiep Hoa
5701 7th Ave
Sunset Park
718-567-7628

Phi Lan
249 E 45th St
Midtown
212-922-9411

Pho Tu Do
119 Bowery
Chinatown
212-966-2666

Saigon Bakery
59 Division St
Chinatown
212-941-1541

Tan Tu Quynh
128 Hester St
LES
212-966-6878

Vietnam Banh Mi So 1
369 Broome St
LES
212-219-8341

Ba Xuyen gets particular raves.

Top One on 8th Avenue and 58th was outstanding the first time I went and good the second time. We were the only non-Asians in the place so we did stick out a bit. And there is NO atmosphere if you are into that. But the food was great (last year).

Carnivore wrote: [quote=linusvanpelt]Sad to hear Ocean Palace is gone. I also liked Jade Plaza[?], which was right nearby -- suggest that if it's still there. It's been a few years for me.

On a related note, I used to love the banh mi at a place on 8th ave called An Dong. But last time I was in the area, I couldn't find it -- either it's closed or moved or I was just lost. Any ideas? Any other banh mi suggestions?

Jade Palace is gone, but there's a new place in the same location. It's not traditional at all- they actually have a dim sum buffet instead of carts, but I have friends who have tried and liked it.

As far as Banh Mi, here's some suggestions from The Chowhound's Guide to the New York Tristate Area by Jim Leff:
(snip)
Ba Xuyen gets particular raves.

That list is several years out of date for Brooklyn

Ba Xuyen has one location only now
4222 8th Ave (at 42nd St)
Sunset Park
718-633-6601

Successor to An Dong is just off 8th Ave...@ 56th St? around there
Overall I like Ba Xuyen better, but some of the freaky meat product is better here.
fyi all of the sandwich shops close by 7pm

what is bánh mì ?

Pacificana took the place of Ocean Palace, and just got this very funny NYT review. I love World Tong for dim sum, but I'd check it out . . .
http://events.nytimes.com/2007/03/21/dining/reviews/21unde.html?ref=dining

March 21, 2007
Fresh From the Dim Sum Cart
By PETER MEEHAN

IT was Sunday morning at Pacificana — a lavish new Cantonese palace in a second-story space above a bank in Chinatown in Brooklyn. The place was mobbed.

All the tables in the mammoth room (so tall you could comfortably dine on stilts as long as you minded the chandeliers) were crowded with diners. Dim sum cart ladies circled.

A friend and I were seated at a table with a Chinese family, the youngest of whom was, we figured, between 9 and 11. With her mouth behind her napkin but her eyes fixed on us, she gave a running commentary on our meal.

We started with dumplings (a metal steamer of juicy, shu mai-like pork dumplings were the best, though there wasn’t a batch that disappointed). It was on to rice noodle wraps stuffed with tender mushrooms and crisp water chestnuts. They fell apart when we picked them up but were good eating all the same. Glutinous rice balls filled with black sesame paste were like chewy, savory bonbons.

The girl couldn’t hide her expression when we ordered chicken feet.

My friend asked her name.

“I Don’t Know!”

I Don’t Know paused before continuing, “And if you knew me I’d be the weirdest girl you knew.”

Her family smiled and went on talking. Ambivalent about the feet — good sesame flavor, floppy cat’s paw texture — we pushed them aside.

I Don’t Know — who seemed pretty normal to us —whispered to a silent girl in a Gap T-shirt who we guessed was her older sister.

We demolished an order of clams from a cart with a little camping stove that busy, high quality places like Pacificana use to keep dim sum fresh and hot. The clams were tossed helter-skelter with lengths of scallion, served in a shallow bowl brimming with a soy brown sauce that carried a faint sting of chili heat.

In a cart that was like a steam table on wheels, one compartment held congee, that infinitely agreeable and absolutely bland restorative Chinese rice gruel, to be served with a handful of freshly chopped scallions. It was the best congee I’ve ever had.

When I Don’t Know’s family ordered taro cakes, I asked my friend to nab a plate from the cart. I Don’t Know announced, “These aren’t quite taro!”

My friend turned around with a plate of taro cakes — wonderfully spongy, starchy, white squares, splashed with soy sauce and a shade lighter than those that I Don’t Know and her family had. “Those are taro cakes!” she volunteered.

She took no follow-up questions on what made hers less taro than ours.

I wonder what she would have had to say about my dinners the week before, when I sampled the restaurant’s expansive and expensive diner menu.

(Large dishes, for three or four people, can run close to $30. With dim sum, you’d really have to work to spend more than $15 per person.)

We picked our dinner from the fish tanks that frame the open end of the kitchen. Steamed shrimp were unevenly cooked, a Dungeness crab was fried in a flavorless glaze, an eel and pork casserole was deeply flavorful but overloaded with cornstarch.

I would have been convinced that Pacificana was a dim sum-only destination (not a bad thing for Brooklynites) if it weren’t for another visit when a splurge ($30 a pound) on a seven-pound king crab paid off. Our waiter brought the sea beast to the table for us to photograph before it was turned over to the kitchen.

Broken down, the crab came back in a brilliant succession of four dishes: bits of crab meat in a mild and elegantly gooey soup served with black vinegar; legs fried, each segment snipped open by a silent waiter to make the sweet, firm flesh that much easier to eat; the meat from the joint between leg and body steamed over broad noodles.

And then it was time for the body, inverted in a bowl, a savory custard flavored with dried scallops baked inside. It made all the flesh seem like a preamble to this showstopper.

It was an impressive conclusion to a meal at Pacificana, which may have opened only a few months ago, but already feels like an institution.

Pacificana

813 55th Street (Eighth Avenue), second floor, Sunset Park, Brooklyn; (718) 871-2880.

BEST DISHES Anything that appeals at dim sum; king crab at dinner.

PRICE RANGE Most dishes in the $8.95 to $18.95 range. Smaller dishes and dim sum are less; seafood preparations are priced by the pound.

CREDIT CARDS All major cards.

HOURS Open at 9 a.m. Monday through Friday and at 8:30 a.m. on the weekends. It closes at 11 p.m. every night except Friday and Saturday, when it closes at 11:30 p.m.

WHEELCHAIR ACCESS Accessible.

I'm in! This weekend?

Me too, which day?

Order the snails in black bean sauce if they have them. Also order the rib tips (dim sum) and the squid. Pacificana is a great place.